Thursday, February 27, 2014

On February 20, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times asked Wherley whether SEIU-UHW is actually sincere
about reforming the healthcare industry… or whether it's simply using several statewide
ballot initiatives as bargaining chips in SEIU’s secret negotiations with hospital bosses.

The association has
said the union is using the initiatives as leverage in their negotiations with
the state's hospitals around organizing efforts. Sean Wherley, a union
spokesman, said the ballot measures were not bargaining chips. "This is
purely an effort to rein in runaway healthcare costs in California," he
said.

On the same exact day that he was
interviewed by the Times (February 20), SEIU
Local 49 in Oregon was
announcing it had executed SEIU’s latest horse-trading maneuver with
the hospital industry. In that deal, SEIU
agreed to withdraw its statewide ballot initiatives in exchange for secret
"partnership" talks with hospital executives.

D’oh!

And it turns out that Wherley is not simply Internet-challenged, he's also suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's.

At the precise moment that he responded to the LA Times reporter's questions, Wherley somehow forgot that in 2012, Regan did
exactly that Wherley is denying! Whoops! And he somehow forgot that Regan, on a
recorded conference call, recently stated in very blunt terms that he's trying to do it again in 2014!

So congrats to Wherley, an aspiring comedian, for turning
himself and SEIU into the punch lines for the week!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Just several months after filing
five statewide ballot initiatives to rein in massive executive salaries and
“reform” the healthcare industry, SEIU
Local 49 announced last week that it’s withdrawing the initiatives from the
November ballot.

Why?

According to a
press release issued by Oregon's governor, SEIU and five hospital companies
have agreed to “come together in a series of conversations aimed at exploring
partnerships that can improve our health care system… As a result of this
agreement, SEIU will not pursue its five health care related ballot measures in
2014.”

So what did SEIU get from its fake ballot initiatives?

Not much.

Five hospital companies agreed to sit down and talk to SEIU.
Not a huge victory… considering that SEIU appears to already have
collective-bargaining relationships with all five of the companies: Kaiser Permanente, Legacy Health, PeaceHealth,
Providence Health and Services, and Oregon Health & Science University.

How are Local 49’s members responding to the announcement?

Meg Niemi

Apparently, they were totally taken by surprise when Local
49’s president, Meg Niemi, pulled
the plug on the initiatives. Just last week, SEIU staffers asked rank-and-file
leaders to go "all in" to publicly support the ballot initiatives, according
to sources inside Local 49.

When workers asked if the union was gonna pull the
initiatives just like Dave Regan did in California, the union officials said,
"No way." And when workers pressed the issue even further, the union officials assured them that
SEIU would make no secret deals.

Tasty bets the rank-and-file members will be even more upset
when they learn how much dues money Niemi spent on gathering signatures for her fake initiatives. In 2012, SEIU-UHW’s
Dave Reganspent
approximately $5.5 million on paid signature gatherers before pulling the
plug on virtually the same initiatives in California.

Tweedle dee. Tweedle dumb.

And there are other costs. SEIU has undoubtedly burnt some turf with politicians
and the public after pumping up SEIU’s plan to “reform” the healthcare industry.

After all, Niemi announced her initiatives with lots of fireworks and fanfare, saying they were a
key part of SEIU’s new “Act Now for a Healthy Oregon" campaign. She promised the initiatives would rein in exorbitant executive salaries,
reduce costs for consumers, increase transparency on the healthcare industry,
and improve quality for patients.

Unless, of course... Queen Meg decided to toss the "public
interest" into the garbage can in exchange for a date to share coffee and pastries with
the fatcat execs whose salaries she had criticized.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

A source leaked an internal document that details
Dave Regan’s secret plan to slash the number of SEIU-UHW's Union Reps (the staffers who help workers with day-to-day worksite problems, grievances,
arbitrations, contract enforcement problems, etc.) so Regan can divert more of
the union's resources to politicians, election campaigns, and other “external” projects.

According to the leaked document, Regan launched a
"pilot project" in Stockton, California where he implemented
"major changes to staff roles" by cutting the union’s support for
workers’ representational needs by 85%.

The memo states: "Ultimately, we would use what we
learned from the pilot to… test a different way to structure staff
resources."

In a section titled "Stockton Pilot Project Goals,” the
memo says the following (see document below):

Our desired internal
results from this [project] are to… temporarily redesign our organizational
infrastructure so it aligns with our strategic theory of building power for
workers by focusing externally… In order to reach our strategic external
reorientation goal it's clear, after much discussion, that there is no easy way
to test major changes to staff roles. That said, redefinition of staff work
roles is critical to achieving our mission and any half-measures will not help
us get there so therefore we must test dramatic change… We will see if we can
accomplish what we need to on the representational side with fewer staff
resources devoted to it.

How deeply is Regan cutting the union’s representational support
for its members?

Check out the numbers on the second page of the document. It says the
"Stockton Pilot Project" is staffed by 8 full-time union staffers. But
get this: only ONE of these EIGHT staffers is helping workers with grievances,
arbitrations, impact bargaining, steward council meetings, etc. The other SEVEN staffers are assigned to "external" campaigns such as signing up
residents for Obamacare.

What else are the seven "external organizers" supposed to do?

According to the leaked document, they’re also responsible
for training union members to serve "as the Union Vision narrators for
members and our community.”

Wow, that sounds super helpful… especially for all
of the rank-and-file members who are getting unjustly terminated by their boss.
Like this 33-year
employee at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center. Or this SEIU-UHW member who was
fired by her meth-snorting
supervisor. Or the 239
SEIU-UHW members who were wrongfully terminated by Kaiser Permanente during
just a nine-month period.

Oh, before Tasty forgets... WTF is a "Union Vision narrator"?

From every indication, it appears that “Wall Street Dave” has hired a high-priced PhD in BullShitology to write useless internal memos about Regan’s
“strategic vision.” It's kind of like trying to cover a steaming pile of cow dung in fancy wrapping paper in hopes that no one will notice the pungent odor of bullsh*t that permeates the room.

Notably, Regan’s secret plan to slash the union’s
representation staff comes on the heels of another leaked SEIU-UHW document -- which detailed the
results of a survey of SEIU-UHW staffers who described the miserable levels
of representational support that SEIU-UHW is currently giving its membership.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

According to Tasty's sources, recent weeks have seen the
firing of staffers, the freezing of various accounts, and an influx of
outsiders who are busily reviewing the organization's books. Last week, the fund’s Director of Finance, Victor
Madamba, was suddenly removed from his job.

The SEIU-UHW Education and Training Fund is a nonprofit
organization with an annual budget of more than $10 million. Its revenues come
from government agencies and healthcare corporations like Kaiser Permanente, Dignity
Health and Sutter Health.

The fund is supposed to train workers to take jobs in the
healthcare industry. But since taking control of the fund, SEIU’s Dave Regan has
tried to use the fund to advance his personal interests.

In recent years, Regan and SEIU-UHW staffer Triana Silton directed the fund's staff to campaign on behalf of
SEIU-UHW during the giant NLRB elections at Kaiser Permanente, which is a blatant
violation of the nonprofit organization's independent status and federal law.

Two of Kaiser's execs sit on the fund's Board of Directors: Arlene Peasnall (VP of Human Resources)
and Jim Simpson (Senior VP of
Business Units outside of California). SEIU-UHW’s Triana Silton also sits on
the board, where she's been joined by a “who’s who” of Regan’s best buddies,
including Joe
Simoes, Hal
Ruddick and Myriam
Escamilla.

About Me

Legal Statement:
Sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com is a labor union related gossip site which publishes rumors, speculation, assumptions, opinions and conjecture in addition to accurately reported facts. Information on this site may or may not be true and sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com makes no warranty as to the validity of any claims.
If you think there is false info on this site, email me and we can see what we can do, otherwise, just enjoy!